Herbert Beerbohm makes an adjustment

This is Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the actor, and Max Beerbohm, the writer and caricaturist. They were half-brothers; Herbert the older by nineteen years. When Herbert became an actor in 1876, he added 'Tree' (translation of Bohm) to his name. According to Max, this was because he wanted a "shoutable monosyllable, for purposes of applause."

I really like Max's caricatures (this isn't one of his best, perhaps because he was fond of his brother.) He gave a very useful recipe for them, which also applies to a certain kind of comedy writing:

The most perfect caricature is that which, on a small surface, with the simplest means, most accurately exaggerates, to the highest point, the peculiarities of a human being, at his most characteristic moment, in the most beautiful manner.

Aubrey Beardsley

 

Very few camels about today. Precious few mice, come to that.

Photo credit: Mary Lee Agnew

Here is a poem by Kahlil Gibran:

A fox looked at his shadow at sunrise and said, "I will have a camel for lunch today." And all morning he went about looking for camels. But at noon he saw his shadow again - and he said, "A mouse will do."

A writer looked at his word count at sunrise...

Still, if you also had a mouse day today, take heart. Here's Ralph Waldo Emerson to cheer us up:

We do not know whether we are busy or idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered, that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us. All our days are so unprofitable while they pass, that 'tis wonderful where or when we ever got anything of this which we call wisdom, poetry, virtue. We never got it on any dated calendar day. Some heavenly days must have been intercalated somewhere.

Thanks, Ralph! And nice use of 'intercalated'.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm on tour from September to November! Venues and ticket links here.

Hold the snide.

I feel this blog has got a little sneery lately, so here's something I saw in Edinburgh that I really liked. It made me both smile and admire everyone involved - the person who wrote it, and the people who did what they did when they read it. Click for a bigger version, if it's too small to read.